Tattooed

Ash looked out the window of her Mustang, her pride and joy. The one thing she could show for her life up until this day.

"WELCOME to Hawkins" that sign has been here for as long as she can remember. Long before she left and it's probably gonna be here long after she's gone. Feels odd to be back "home" she hasn't set foot here in...oh god what is it 9 years? Her first year of college she came home during breaks to be fed by the parents and getting all the gossip from her friends.

Then they all started leaving for jobs or college. Wasn't as much fun to come home any more. And she'd met Jay, she was head over heals. The red flags were so easy to ignore. The first Christmas they spent together he thought it wasn't safe for her to be out on the roads in holiday traffic, couldn't they just spend a cosy Christmas alone? That was 9 years ago, she hasn't been home for Christmas since the year before that. The second year Jay had gotten her hooked on acid, she couldn't come home and try to do drugs under her parents roof, no fucking way! She dropped out of college, told her parents it wasn't for her, she wanted to work instead...which was another lie.

4 years in he'd bullied her into an eating disorder, she was a shadow of her old self. She'd gotten clean though, she patted herself on the back for doing that all on her own.

Ash had always been bigger, not fat, lets call it voluptuous. But the drugs had taken all of her curves, once she got the drugs out of her system she started eating to get her figure back, she always loved her curves. Jay...apparently not so much. Once she was back feeling good and happy again the small remarks, the rude comments, the dirty looks, the flirting with skinny girls began. Everything escalated so fast, before she knew it she'd began measuring her food intake going to the gym 7 days a week. All to lose the weight her boyfriend was so apparently disgusted by. One night he'd come home drunk and high and thrown her into the exposed brick wall in their apartment, then he proceeded to rape her for hours. Still she was just too broken to leave him. All of these things combined made her sick, like proper sick. She wound up in the hospital with heart palpation, a bleeding ulcer and a severe deficiency of pretty much everything. Thinking back she knows that the thing that angered her the most at that moment was the fact that the doctor had called her mother, and that turned out to be the thing that saved her.

When her mother entered her room at the hospital and saw her and broke down crying like she was dead already was like a fucking slap in the face to Ash. What was she doing to herself? She LOVED being curvaceous. Where were her boobs? Her voluptuous ass? She swore an oath that day to get back to that girl, to make something of herself. Not sure what but whatever she would become she'd at least be single as hell! She stayed at the hospital for about 2 weeks. By that time her father had forcefully removed Jay from her life. Promising a swift death if he ever came close to Ash again. Her dad's a big guy, an impressive guy... an intimidating guy. Jay was a skinny two timing hustler with no backbone. Last thing she'd heard he left for Vegas that same day her father kicked him out of their place. Well good riddance! Five years of terror was over, she spent her 25th birthday in peace and quiet surrounded by her family.

The first months, while she was still struggling with her food demons her mum stayed with her. Ash didn't want to go back to Hawkins and recover there. She wanted to remain in the city she'd grown to "love" as she stubbornly said. The day the scales landed on her old weight and the clothes she used to wear hugged her curves just right she decided to get a tattoo to remind herself of the struggles she lived through. That's when she knew, this is what she wanted to do! Tattoo people! She'd always been super artistic so the designing was no issue, she just needed for someone to give her a chance as an apprentice. She started an in depth interrogation of the friendly shop owner. How did he start out? What would she need? He smiled and answered all her questions, even long after he finished tattooing her.